I push back from my desk and realize afresh that this is why, by God’s grace, I purpose to read through the bible every year. It’s because I forget what I shouldn’t. Even well-known passages and verses can fade from memory due to time . . . or, perhaps, be displaced from memory because of the data begging to be processed through a given season.

I’m in a such a season. A season that in so many ways doesn’t make sense. One not foreseen nor anticipated. One with no guidebook containing the 7 easy steps to walking through it. A season where I recognized fairly early on that I would have to wait on the Lord in order to make sense of the past and to direct the future. A season that would require patience. And I don’t do patience well!

And yet, I have. By God’s grace, but not without ups and downs, I’m hanging in there. But more than hanging in there, I think I’ve been drawing nearer. And more than drawing nearer, I even think that perhaps I’m getting stronger. Hmm . . .

If I am surprised by that, I shouldn’t be. My reading this morning in Isaiah 40 reminded me why.

Do you not know? Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the whole earth.
He never becomes faint or weary; there is no limit to His understanding.
He gives strength to the faint and strengthens the powerless.
Youths may become faint and weary, and young men stumble and fall,
but those who trust in the LORD will renew their strength;
they will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not become weary,
they will walk and not faint.

(Isaiah 40:28-31 CSB)

They who wait on the LORD (that’s how I learned it) will renew their strength. Now there’s a promise to claim. But the power in the promise doesn’t lie in my remembering to claim it.

The power of the promise lies in the fact that the God who is the everlasting God has ordained a connection between waiting and refueling — between trusting and surmounting.

The reality of the promise isn’t dependent on me remembering it’s a promise. It’s real because the God who never becomes faint or weary and has no limit to His understanding of how things work, is ready, willing, and able to give strength to the faint and strengthens the powerless.

Whether or not I consciously remembered that when I purposed to be patient isn’t the operative factor of whether or not the dynamic is engaged. Those who wait on the LORD — those who trust in the LORD — WILL renew their strength.

I pause as I read this verse and think back as to the start of this season and there wasn’t much soaring going on. The only running I might have considered was the temptation to just run away. The only walking anticipated was with my head bowed down. But sitting where I’m sitting this morning — and knowing the race is not yet fully run — the weariness has not won and this fellow, by God’s grace, has not fainted.

So, this morning I don’t claim the promise, I rejoice in it. Mine wasn’t to remember it, recite it, demand it, or to hold God to it in order to experience the truth of it. Mine was just to trust in the LORD — just to wait. And the fact that, almost a year later, I’m still trusting and still waiting — and sometimes even feeling like I might be soaring and not fainting — is not evidence of my endurance but is witness to God’s faithfulness. Not because of who I am, but because of what He’s done. Not because of what I’ve done, but because of who He is (thanx again Casting Crowns for that line).

Gonna keep doing what I can do, wait on the Lord. Gonna trust that God’s gonna do what God said He’d do, renew my strength. Because whether I remember it or not, it’s still a promise.

Through His overflowing grace. For His everlasting glory.